by Anna Hackett
Smothering a shocked cry, she slid a hand into her boot and wrenched out her compact, standard-issue Patrol knife. She slashed at the vine until it let her go. The vine reared back and slithered out the cracked window.
Goddess. Heart pounding, Nissa got to her feet, used the manual release to open the cockpit door and hobbled toward the engine room.
The last thing she remembered was the ship just leveling out as they came through the atmosphere. All her hails to Justyn on the comm had gone unanswered as the sea of thick green below rushed up to meet them, then…nothing.
Justyn. Please be okay. She scrambled down the corridor, gripped the railings and leaped down a small set of stairs. Please be alive, you foolish, brave man.
Just near the engine room, the corridor was blocked by debris. She grabbed at the ruined wall paneling, metal sheeting and wiring, tossing each bit behind her as she made just enough room to squeeze through.
For the first time in years, she prayed to Asara, the snake goddess her mother had worshiped, whispered pleas tumbling from her lips. Beyond the debris, the engine room doors hung crookedly.
“Justyn!” She pushed forward and stumbled to a halt.
Most of the engine room was…gone. Torn away on impact. There were a few meters of metal flooring remaining, and a twisted lump of metal that was all that was left of the engine. Beyond that, a wall of green vegetation and tangled vines.
Her stomach dropped to her knees. Oh, no. Justyn. She shook her head and pressed a fist to her mouth, barely aware that her hands were shaking. He couldn’t be gone. He burned so brightly with life, and there was no way she could imagine that light gone from the galaxy. Gone from her life.
Then she heard a groan.
Racing around the remains of the engine, she found Justyn sitting against the wall, his long legs splayed in front of him and his head falling to the side.
“Oh, Goddess.” Nissa knelt beside him and cupped his face. “Justyn, can you hear me?”
“Don’t…shout.”
His words were slurred and his breathing labored. But he was alive. Her heart gave a glorious leap.
Then she saw the blood.
It was spreading in a rapidly growing pool beneath him.
Frantically, she ran her hands over his body, searching for the source.
“Not sure…I’m up for…getting naked with you right now, Captain Smooth.” He tried for a grin but it was more of a grimace.
She shook her head. “You’re bleeding out after crashing a starship and you’re still trying to flirt.” She needed to keep him talking and conscious.
“Nothing…would stop me flirting with you.”
She stared into those silver-gray eyes for a long moment. She didn’t know when those beautiful eyes had become such a steady part of her life, but they had. A cherished part. Her fingers touched metal. She’d found the source of the bleeding. A piece of steel was lodged in his side. “Where’s your medscope?”
He sucked in a breath with obvious effort. “Medbay. Back down the corridor. Third door…on right.”
She gripped his hand and squeezed. “I’ll be back in a minute. Wait here.”
“Not planning to go anywhere, sweetheart.” His eyelids drooped.
“No, hey!” She shook him until pain-filled eyes met hers. “You have to stay awake.”
“So tired, Nissa. Come lie with me.” He hummed a few bars of a song with that line in it.
Her heart pounded in her chest. Goddess, he was losing it. “Sing for me, Phoenix. I’ll be back before you finish the song and I’ll get you fixed up.”
“Right.” He blinked slowly and then launched in a bawdy ditty about a barmaid with a big smile and bigger…feminine charms.
Nissa couldn’t help but smile. But once she reached the corridor, his voice was slurring and starting to stutter. She pushed through the debris and fought her way into the medbay. The room was barely bigger than a cupboard and medical items were strewn all around the small space, but thankfully everything was well labeled.
As she hurried back to the engine room, she realized she could no longer hear Justyn singing. Silence.
She ran faster. She exploded into the engine room and cried out.
Justyn’s head had fallen to his chest.
And green vines were wrapping around his limbs and chest like snakes.
Some of the vines were lying in the pool of blood, vibrating gently. It was then she realized they were feeding on the blood.
“Get off him!” Without thinking, Nissa grabbed up a length of pipe. She eyed where the vines were coming in through the breach in the hull and swung.
Metal hit vegetation with a meaty squelch.
Some of the vines retracted, slithering away. Others stubbornly stayed, too interested in their meal. The skitter of several small…things clicked against the metal floor, and out of the corner of her eye, Nissa saw a bunch of tiny, black…creatures scramble away.
Wild-eyed, she scanned the space and spied a laser cutter on the floor. She snatched it up and flicked it on. The golden flame burned brightly.
She went after the nearest vine.
This time, it let go of Justyn so fast the tentacle-vine whipped past Nissa, knocking her off her feet. Crawling across the floor on her hands and knees, she slashed at the others. She heard a high-pitched squeal from outside, then they all suddenly let go and retreated out of the engine room, disappearing back into the jungle.
Swallowing the bile in her throat, she turned the laser cutter off and stared out into the jungle. She sensed the damn blood-sucking vines were still out there, watching and waiting. And Goddess only knew what else was hiding out there. They had to get somewhere safer.
But first, she needed to heal Justyn up enough to move him.
“Justyn?”
No response. His head hung heavily, his shaggy hair covering his face.
She went to work on his side, wrenching out the wicked shard of metal. Justyn groaned, but then went silent. She flicked on the medscope, waving the blue light over the open wound.
Don’t let me be too late. She kept the medscope over the large gash. She knew it would be healing the broken blood vessels under the skin. She saw the skin knitting. The device would also be eradicating anything that could cause infection.
The small silver cylinder gave a quiet beep and she turned it off. Except for the tear in his shirt and the sticky pool of blood, there was no sign that he’d been injured.
When she looked up, he was watching her. He smiled. This time it was his trademark grin.
“Thanks, Nissa.” He grabbed her hand.
She tangled her fingers with his and just held on for a second. All the fear she’d kept hidden bubbled inside her, soothed by the obvious fact he was okay.
She released a long breath. “Thanks for getting us down here in one piece.” She eyed the tear in the hull. “Your ship is not in one piece, though.”
“Nope, the ol’ girl isn’t going to make it out of this one.” Suddenly his brow creased, his body stiffening.
“What’s wrong?” Had the medscope missed something?
He let out a groan. “Fuck, it’s like acid in my veins.” His back arched, the tendons in his neck straining.
What was going on? Nissa looked over him, and spotted a dark patch on the inside of his left forearm. She grabbed his arm, turning it over for a better look.
“What the fuck is that?” he said between gritted teeth.
It looked like a splotch of old-fashioned ink. It covered half his forearm. “I’m not sure—” She gasped. Something was moving under his skin!
“Jesus!” Justyn writhed. “It hurts like hell.”
She watched whatever had burrowed into him wriggling its way up his arm. She swallowed against the nausea churning her gut and looked again at the black mark.
In the center was a small hole. Something had definitely gotten in.
“I’ve got to get it out.�
� She tried the medscope but it didn’t register anything. Next she probed the black wound.
The entire splotch moved!
Nissa jerked her hand back. The blackness on his skin was the tail of whatever was inside him.
“Get it out!” Justyn yelled, still squirming in pain. His entire body was drenched with sweat and it wasn’t just from the humidity.
She gripped the black tail, gathering it together and then she pulled.
Justyn’s scream rang through the ship and out into the jungle, startling something that shook the nearby trees.
She fought back tears. “I need to find a way to numb the pain—”
“No! Just get it out.” Agony-ravaged silver eyes bored into hers. “Just do it, Nissa.”
With a nod, she got a better grip on the invader. It wriggled in her hand, trying to burrow deeper under his skin. “On three.”
He gave a nod.
She leaned forward and kissed him. “One.”
He stared into her eyes, opening his mouth for the next count.
Nissa yanked.
He screamed again. Part of a long, black, leech-like body came out of his arm. She pulled again, but the creature was fighting her, no doubt gripping into his skin and causing more torture.
“What happened to two and three?” he panted.
She got to her feet, pushed one boot against the wall for more leverage. “Thought it was better this way.” She yanked with all her strength behind it.
But the leech was stubborn, refusing to let go. She kept pulling, Justyn’s screams ringing in her ears and sweat dripping into her eyes. Her chest heaved. Goddess, what if she couldn’t get it out?
The fight continued, and Nissa wasn’t winning.
She was sobbing now, her arms aching.
“Nis-sa.”
Justyn’s labored voice.
“St-op.”
She didn’t release the leech, but she stopped pulling. Justyn seemed to settle a little.
“It isn’t safe here.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper.
“I know. Once we get this out, we’ll head back to the cockpit. The windshield’s cracked but we can board it up, stop the…wildlife from getting in.”
“Nissa, it’s not coming out.”
She refused to look at him. “Don’t be silly—”
“Nissa.” His voice was stronger now. “I think night’s coming and I don’t want you here when the darkness hits.”
She glanced out at the jungle again. It was hard to tell through the dense canopy, but it seemed to be getting darker. She shivered. “I’m not leaving you!”
“I want you to go. Board up the cockpit, hunker down, and contact my brothers.”
“No.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “Come here.”
She leaned closer and he grabbed her. The leech slipped out of her hands. Justyn yanked her close and devoured her mouth. He smelled like blood, sweat and man. All three things screamed “alive” and that was all that mattered. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back.
He pulled back, his gaze boring into her. “I love you, Nissa.”
Her heart stopped and she felt like the ground had dropped away beneath her. “What?”
“I’ve been in love with you a long time. I think from the first time you told me you were going to arrest my ass. Then I caught you checking out my ass. I couldn’t believe such a beautiful, smart, sexy woman might be interested in a smuggler like me.” A sheepish smile. “Why do you think you almost caught me all those times?”
A lump of pain lodged in her chest. “You wanted me to catch you?”
“I just wanted to see you.”
Full-blown panic rushed through her. She didn’t know if it was because of his confession or because of this terrible situation. “Justyn, you are not going to die here. I won’t let you.”
“Sweet, stubborn Nissa.” His face hardened. “You need to go now.”
“Screw you, Justyn.” She leaped to her feet. “Everybody who has ever said they loved me has never loved me enough to fight. My mother died. My father’s love comes with conditions. My brother said he loved me, right up until he left and became a mass murder.”
“Nissa—”
She kept going. She was so sick of denying herself the things she really wanted. “No other man has ever said the words to me, but now you do and you expect me to believe it, even though you want to die here like a martyr?”
“I want you to live!” he shouted.
“And I want you to live, too!” she shouted back.
Chapter Sixteen
Pain was like fire in his blood but Justyn was entranced by an enraged Nissa.
She reached down, gripped the leech-creature on his arm again and gave a mighty tug—this one fueled by her incandescent anger.
The creature came out in a single rush.
Justyn groaned, the pain beyond outrageous, and fought the need to be sick.
Nissa fell backward on her ass, the black creature wriggling around in her hand. She stared at it for a stunned second. “It’s not a leech, it’s a plant.” Her nose wrinkled and she tossed it on the floor. Then she grabbed the laser cutter and before it could slither away, she sliced it to pieces.
Justyn slapped a palm over the wound on his arm and tried to calm his harsh panting.
She scrambled back to him. “Okay?”
He swallowed. “I will be.” Thanks to one stubborn, courageous Patrol captain.
She set the medscope over the ugly gash and soon it was healed up.
Instantly, he felt better. “Thank you.” He grabbed her and tugged her to his chest. “For everything.”
She sank down beside him and buried her face in his tattered shirt. Her fingers dug into him, holding on tight. He let the warmth of her body soak into him.
After a few minutes, she pulled back. “We need to get to the cockpit.”
“Agreed.”
“You up for a stroll?”
He reached for a smile. “Only if you agree to hold my hand.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re sounding more like yourself.”
With a shoulder wedged into his armpit, she helped him get to his feet. Hand in hand, they made it through the ship, stopping to gather some food, blankets and clothes. Once in the cockpit, they boarded up the cracked viewscreen and closed the reinforced cockpit door.
In the dim red of the emergency lighting, Justyn eyed the charred and dented command console. “We need to get a message through to Dare and Rynan.” He sank into his chair and tried the console controls.
“Anything?”
“Nope. I’m going to have to set off the e-beacon.” All starships carried emergency beacons that broadcast mayday transmissions on all frequencies. But Rynan had altered Justyn’s so that it only broadcast on a frequency used by the Nomad. No self-respecting smuggler wanted to broadcast to rivals, pirates, or God help him, Patrol, in an emergency.
“Tell me where it is.” Nissa stepped in front of him. “You rest.”
He didn’t argue. He was feeling like crud. “Take the panel off the emergency cabinet. Over there, beside the comms console.”
He took pleasure in watching her move. She had such a sinuous way of moving that drew the gaze, made a man wonder how she’d look dancing…or writhing on top of him, naked.
She ripped off the panel, fished around in the space, then pulled out the beacon. It was a small metallic dome just a little bigger than his hand. After setting it down in front of him, she perched on the armrest of his chair. He pressed the activation sequence.
The top of the beacon opened and four small arms opened out, making the beacon look like a star covered in blinking blue lights. He knew that inside the casing was a small shard of a Perman fusion crystal—a near-inexhaustible power supply.
“Done,” he said. “It’ll take a while to spool up and get the signal out.”
With a sigh, Niss
a moved to the supplies they’d salvaged, grabbed a couple of nutribars and sat in her chair. She held out a bar. “Care for some nutritious-but-dubious-tasting nourishment?”
“Sure.” She tossed it and he snatched it out of the air. As he ate, he tried to ignore the red gloom of the lights. It reminded him of things he tried very hard to forget.
“What’s wrong?”
He glanced her way. “Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“You get this blank, slightly hard look on your face when something’s wrong.”
He stared at her. She hadn’t returned his words of love, or brought them up since, and damned if that didn’t leave a burn under his heart. But she noticed the looks on his face? A secret smile unfurled inside him.
“I hate the emergency lighting. Reminds me of being a kid.”
“You crashed a starship as a kid?”
“Well, I’ve crashed more times than I’d like to admit.” He took a bite of his nutribar, chewed slowly. “But no, it reminds me of when my stepfather locked me and my brothers in our basement.”
Nissa gasped. “He locked you up? Why?”
Justyn’s stomach roiled. “He hated us. Thought we were brats. Possessive bastard wanted our mother all to himself.”
“How often?”
He remembered the cloying darkness tinged with the red of the tiny light Ry had managed to smuggle in, the relentless hunger, hearing his brothers’ muffled tears. “A lot. Sometimes for days at a time.”
“Goddess, Justyn, how old were you?”
“Started when I was five.”
Nissa shot to her feet. “The monster!”
“Yeah, he was.” Justyn took another bite of the bar. It tasted like dust. “Mom was too scared to leave him or fight him. It didn’t stop until Dare got big enough to hit back.” Justyn shook his head against the memories.
“He beat you, too?”
Every day for seven years. There’d been so many broken bones and bruises. “Yeah. But we survived. We had each other, and Dare started fighting back, protected Ry and me. I know Dare and Ry have always got my back. The one good thing that came from that hellhole was that I learned the true meaning of loyalty.”